The Secret Lives of Squibs
by Inconsequential
Summary: ...one Squib, to be exact.  Argus Filch, dissatisfied with his appearance and himself, decides to live his dream working in a Polyjuice brothel.  In a place where you never know the true identity of your client, who knows who you might wake up next to?


A/N: This is an extended riff off of 'Mistaken Identies Ch. 2: Remus' Worst Night.' You should read that first to understand the beginning of the story, but it's not totally necessary; you'll catch on later (see A/N at bottom for the necessary exposition if you want). In any case, warnings for this story: well, it takes place partly in a brothel. But no explicit sex. Just some appalling hints which your imagination may make much worse—come on, it's FILCH. OK? On with the story.

Chapter One: Transformations and Turning Points

Argus Filch woke up to Remus Lupin's frantic screams and shrugged to himself, rolling over in the bed of room G9, _Polyjuice for the Amorous_. This sort of thing tended to happen when the potion wore off and his customers saw what they were really getting… of course, that was part of the kink for most of them, and he was usually careful to take two or three draughts during the night to avoid this very outcome. Well, everyone made mistakes sometimes. Chuckling to himself as a wild-eyed Remus dashed out of the room wearing only his underwear, Filch rolled over in bed and pondered over how he had gotten to this rather enjoyable point in his life.

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Argus Filch had always hated who he was: a Squib in a Wizard's world. So one of the happiest days of his life was the day when he discovered that Polyjuice Potion worked on people like him.

He decided to spend as little time as possible looking like himself.

It really began when he was seventeen and started losing his hair. One day he had a full, thick mane of brown hair, which nicely balanced out his rather enormous nose and freakishly bushy eyebrows; the next thing he knew, it was mostly gone, clogging his drain and knotting in his hairbrush like a dead animal.

Then his eyesight started to go, and he'd be _damned_ if he was going to get glasses. With his nose and eyebrows, he'd look like someone wearing one of those Halloween nose glasses. So he developed an incredibly unbecoming squint.

By the time he was thirty-five, wrinkles had begun to emerge, and Filch had had enough. He was already strapped for finding a girlfriend; the closest he'd come was a really annoying she-cat who had attached herself to him while in heat, and seemed to have mistaken him for one of her species. He named her Mrs. Norris after his very flirtatious old nanny, who had been 95 and senile and still tried to molest young Filch. Perhaps that was why he got such a kick out of thinking of putting students in chains, or whipping them.

Yes, Filch knew very well his reasons for desiring corporal punishment. He simply had a bondage fetish. Girls or boys, he didn't much care (though he wasn't a pederast, preferring older specimens). He _loved_ coming upon snogging couples in broom closets, and would sometimes watch through a crack in the door before breaking in on them. To say nothing of the small hole he had put through the stone leading to the Hufflepuff girls' baths.

But voyeurism and imagination only took you so far, really. And then, while strolling down Knockturn Alley one day over summer vacation, while the House Elves cared for the deserted school and Filch watched the money run out of his pockets, he made a discovery which would lead to a turning point in his life.

There before him, glowing like the proverbial Holy Grail, was a sign,

_Polyjuice for the Amorous_

_Have the lover of your dreams… _be_ the lover of your dreams_

While Filch was too uneducated and, frankly, stupid to understand the pun on polyamory, he did understand two things:

It was a place where people drank polyjuice potion.

It was a brothel.

Upon realizing these things, Filch danced a mad jig in the street. He understood, suddenly, the answer to his problems. Of course, he couldn't make his own Polyjuice Potion, but he could buy some with what remained of Dumbledore's 'generous' salary… and he could buy the experience of a lifetime.

He entered the establishment, paid for a night as Lucius Malfoy (then a seventh-year student, and he had one of his hairs because… well, he just did. In a necklace which he liked to caress sometimes) with 'Celestina Warbeck.'

He thought afterwards that it was the happiest night of his life.

Of course, much later, while working for _Polyjuice for the Amorous_ himself, he learned that 'Celestina' had really been his now-125-year-old former nanny, but that was all right; she died soon after of a heart attack, and he didn't have to deal with any morning-after embarrassment, as they both took several draughts of Polyjuice throughout the night.

Filch returned to Hogwarts that fall considerably poorer and sorer in places he'd never actually felt before, but radiantly happy. He did, however, develop the odd habit of seizing students by the hair while punishing them—mainly the older boys, but sometimes the girls as well. (Filch had begun to experiment with alternate-sex love experience, and quite liked it; he'd been with women as a man, as a women, with men as a man, and with men as a women). This action puzzled the students, but not as much as the strangely faraway expression they sometimes saw flit across his face later. Almost as though he _knew_ something about them… something… intimate.

None of what Filch did was, strictly speaking, illegal. Prostitution was no crime for wizards who expected purebloods to enter early, loveless marriages, and while impersonating people with Polyjuice against their will was, technically, a crime, it wasn't for the purpose of libel. Since both parties knew the other was Polyjuiced, defamation or illegal identity thievery wasn't a problem.

After awhile, though, Filch realized that he was spending his money at _Polyjuice for the Amorous_ almost as quickly as he was making it mopping floors and doing other tasks that a House Elf could have accomplished in minutes, but was assigned to him by Dumbledore so he could 'feel useful.' Damned busybody moron.

One day, while Filch was leaving _Polyjuice for the Amorous_, the owner, Mr. Amodosius Ambrose, pulled him to one side.

"You know, you're our most frequent customer," he said, patting Filch on the back. "In fact, my workers say you're pretty good at what you do. How'd you like to enter the _Polyjuice for the Amorous_ family?" He thought about what he'd just said, and decided 'family' was not the best word to use. "I mean, er, join the team. Work for me. You don't mind going either way, right? Good. That's good." He whipped out a contract. "Now if you'll just sign here, Mr. Filch, you'll be making the best choice of your life."

And Filch, cynical as he was, believed Mr. Ambrose. He signed the form.

"Welcome aboard," said Mr. Ambrose, shaking his hand heartily.

Filch was radiant. It was a dream come true. Who knew what adventures waited just over the horizon of multiple anonymous partners? Who knew, indeed…

A/N: I will continue this story… this chapter was more an introduction, to explain how he got to where he is… Also, if you'd like to read the background to _Polyjuice for the Amorous_, I've copied the following from 'Mistaken Identities':

The establishment had been the idea of Amodosius Ambrose, once the young and dashing scion of an old, pureblood family. Gifted in nothing but Potions and skirt-chasing while at Hogwarts, his bent toward shool-age witches would have gotten him into trouble had he not combined his two main interests. His extremely tolerant wife (incidentally a muggle-born) put up with nightly infusions of Polyjuice so that her husband, as they grew older, could be properly satisfied. Eventually, as he began to exchange his hair for a potbelly, she made him do the same.

And the idea of _Polyjuice for the Amorous_ was born (Amodosius needed the money, as his family had disinherited him when he married the muggle-born Helena). It was quite simple, really: you and one of the workers (whether they were originally male or female did not matter much, though they took requests) would avail yourself of Polyjuice Potion with the hairs of your selection, and _voilà_—you could experience love as the man or woman you wished you could be, with the man or woman you wished you could be with. In appearance, anyway. They also kept the hairs of some accommodating (or not so accommodating) famous witches and wizards, like the young teen heartthrob, Gilderoy Lockhart, the lovely WWN presenter Glenda Chittock, or the attractive gossip columnist Rita Skeeter. No Veela, of course, because their hair couldn't be used in Polyjuice—but just as well, plenty of houses of ill repute had Veela, and not everyone wanted sheer perfection.


End file.
